Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a $1.375 billion settlement from Google over privacy violations, marking what officials are calling a historic victory in the state’s fight against tech giants’ data collection practices.
The settlement, finalized this week, addresses years of alleged unauthorized tracking of Texans’ private information, including location data, incognito browsing activity, and biometric identifiers like facial geometry and voiceprints. It’s the largest single-state privacy settlement with Google to date — dwarfing previous agreements by more than a billion dollars.
“This historic $1.375 billion price tag for Google’s misconduct sends a clear warning to all of Big Tech that I will take aggressive action against any company that misuses Texans’ data and violates their privacy,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the agreement.
What exactly did Google do wrong?
According to the Texas AG’s office, Google’s violations were threefold. First, the company allegedly tracked users’ locations even after they had disabled location services on their devices. Second, Google misled users about the privacy of its Incognito browsing mode. And third, the tech giant collected biometric data — including facial geometry through Google Photos and voiceprints via Google Assistant — without proper authorization.
“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches and even their voiceprints and facial geometry,” Paxton declared in May when the settlement was first announced. “I fought back and won.”
The sheer size of the settlement is remarkable. Previous privacy settlements with Google have been comparatively modest — the highest single-state agreement before this was just $93 million. Even a coalition of 40 states only managed to secure $391 million from the tech giant for similar violations, nearly $1 billion less than what Texas alone has now obtained.
This isn’t Paxton’s first major victory against tech companies. The settlement follows a $1.4 billion agreement with Meta over illegal biometric data collection and previous Google settlements of $700 million and $8 million for anticompetitive and deceptive trade practices, as documented by privacy law experts.
Behind the legal battle
The litigation began in 2022 when Texas filed suit against Google, focusing on what the state characterized as systematic privacy violations. Norton Rose Fulbright served as outside counsel for the Texas Attorney General’s Office throughout the process.
Joseph M. Graham, Jr., Norton Rose Fulbright’s Houston Co-Head of Litigation, expressed pride in the outcome: “We are proud to have supported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in representing the State of Texas in this important fight for Texans’ data privacy rights,” he noted.
The settlement stands as one of the largest in Texas state history and potentially signals a turning point in how states approach privacy enforcement actions against major technology companies.
So what does this mean for everyday users? While the settlement doesn’t immediately change Google’s practices nationwide, it represents mounting pressure on tech companies to be more transparent about data collection. And for Texans specifically, it delivers a substantial financial penalty against what the state characterized as years of privacy violations.
For Google, the message is clear: the cost of privacy violations is rising — and states like Texas are increasingly willing to pursue aggressive enforcement actions with billion-dollar consequences.
